empty music

2013-14

In 2013, Jagoda Szmytka bore witness to the behind-the-scenes administrative process of producing a chamber opera, and determined that the absurdity of the opera on stage hardly reaches the extent of the actual absurdity of the operatic business. These ideas became the motivation behind empty music (2014). In her many essays on the work, she describes the composer’s need to compose from the initial periphery of the work; alone with the actual notes of the composition, the composer must ultimately ask herself why she wants to write the piece at all. The situation of the white sheet of paper, the emptiness and self-doubt become the central motives of empty music.

Text by Björn Gottstein for the program book of ECLAT festival new music Stuttgart

Jagoda Szmytka PL

Polish-born Jagoda Szmytka studied art history, philosophy, music theory and composition in Wrocław, Graz, Frankfurt/Main and Karlsruhe. Her music has been performed at festivals and institutions throughout Europe; she has received the Staubach Honorarium and the Stipend Prize of the Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music; scholarships from the DAAD and the Art Foundation Baden-Württemberg; and residencies at Herrenhaus Edenkoben and La Muse en Circuit Paris. In 2017 she will be artist-in-residence at Villa Serpentara; she has been an often artist-in-residency at ZKM|Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe. Her CD Bloody Cherries was released in 2015, and she was awarded the 2016 GEMA Detuscher Musikautorenpreis. Jagoda Szmytka is founder and leader of two projects: PLAY – Platform for art and culture social initiatives & ENTER - Collective specialized in performing Referential Music.